I hope you enjoyed this year's
Halloween season and last week's themed article,
though now we return to the Epcot International
Food and Wine Festival. After a few weeks of
samples, bite, nibbles, and tastes around the
world, we look at the sweeter side of food:
desserts around the world! If you missed my
previous articles covering the Festival, check
out
October 15th and
October 23rd's articles.

Our first stop is in the Middle
East, where the Morocco marketplace offers a
crispy, flaky sweet treat called Baklava. While
not involving chickens nor volcanoes, baklava is
a dessert made from layers of phyllo pastry (an
extremely thin sheet of pastry dough from Middle
Eastern cuisine) with chopped nuts, and honey.
The dessert is found in many cultures in the
region, though most credit it to Turkey, as its
name is Turkish.

The Moroccan marketplace was set up in just the
right spot by a scene fitting palm

The Moroccan version was
actually quite heavy in weight and in richness.
The layers were crisp and incredibly thin, but I
wouldn't be surprised if there were dozens of
layers in this serving alone. Some baklava I
have experienced evenly distributes nuts and
honey, though in this version the filling was
concentrated to the bottom half. The bottom half
layer was sticky and sweet with honey and
chopped nuts, I found it a little odd, but a
nice way to experience the super thin phyllo
dough by itself with the signature flavors of
baklava. Overall, I particularly enjoyed the
dessert and found it a great value for the size
serving you received.

Next we'll head north to Europe,
where the popular classical pastries we know
today began. Whether for breakfast or dessert,
the Belgian Waffle is an expected treat one
would hope to find in the Belgium marketplace.
Epcot's Belgian Waffle was a sweet and crispy
treat with berry compote and a rosette of fresh
whipped cream. With a light and crispy outside
and fluffy warm inside, the waffle was just as
waffles should be. I could sense a hint of
nutmeg or some other sweet spice like cardamom.
They used a great waffle iron for these little
bites, each waffle of sizeable but manageable
thickness with deep wells to hold the fresh
berry compote. The sweet berries contrasted
great with the sweet spiced, wholesome waffles,
while the rich whipped cream helped cut the
acidity from the berries. Overall a satisfying
treat, making me ready for breakfast!

Nestled among fresh flowers on a quaint wooded
corner by the France pavilion,
the Belgium marketplace was one of the most
beautiful of the festival

The main focus of
my pastry studies in school was in French
pastry, so desserts in Epcot's France pavilion
have a lot to live up to. Oddly enough, I had
not sampled the cr'me brulee at the France
marketplace for the festival. Part of it may
have been the smell of the escargot being served
from the same kiosk, though, if I recall
correctly, I lacked a Lactaid tablet that day.
My flatmate John tried it and he really enjoyed
it! Cr'me brulee translates into 'burnt cream'
because of its signature hardened top caused by
caramelized sugar. Whether by broiling or a
torch, the crunchy top of cr'me brulee is a
signature part of the dessert. John's dessert
had the satisfying crack as soon as he started
to dig in to the dessert. In his own words, John
describes the classical French dessert: '[The
cr'me brulee was] rich and smooth, [I] loved
that it was chocolate and not vanilla.' I just
may have to try it before the festival ends!

Though I did not have the cr'me
brulee, I did have a dessert crepe a few weeks
later! It was not part of the Food and Wine
Festival, but the France pavilion regularly
features a crepe stand offering dessert crepes
with a variety of toppings. Crepes are the
French version of the pancake, though much
thinner. I chose a chocolate crepe and while
incredibly delicious, I was a tad disappointed
with its preparation.

By all means, it makes perfect
sense how they create these crepes for
logistical purposes; I was expecting a tad more
effort on France's behalf. The stand is equipped
with a crepe griddle, flat and round, perfect
for making fresh crepes, though they were only
using it to warm up premade crepes. Also the
chocolate came out of a bottle of Hershey's
syrup. For the price I was paying I was
expecting a bit more. At least put the chocolate
in a nondescript container to make us think its
quality French chocolate! Still, I can't
complain, Hershey's makes great chocolate and
the speed in which I received my crepe order
made up for its shortcomings.

Ireland's marketplace is set in a thatched roof
hut by the United Kingdom pavilion

The chocolate theme of our
dessert night at Food and Wine continues with
Ireland's Chocolate Lava Cake with Bailey's
Chocolate Ganache. This is probably by far the
best dessert after pumpkin mousse at the
festival. Chocolate Lava cake can easily be made
incorrectly; believe me, my classmates and I
have baked lava cakes a tad too long, completely
eliminating the lava portion. Epcot's pastry
chefs made the perfect size cake with an
overflowing pool of chocolate lava. Upon first
watching the chef's unmold the lava cakes onto
the small paper plate, I was completely shocked
at its miniscule size. Though once he ladled the
'lava' or rather the Bailey's Chocolate Ganache,
I was all too eager and pleased with what I was
getting.

My friend Alison sampled Ireland's cheese plate,
seen on the left, which she found quite
satisfying!

If you ever get the chance to
enjoy the cake, make sure to let it cool down
first. The ganache may actually have been the
typical temperature of lava as it steamed in
front of me on a warm evening! The use of the
biting alcohol content from the Bailey's in the
ganache helped to provide balance with the
semi-sweet chocolate dessert. Upon first bite,
all you taste is pure, unadulterated, rich
quality dark chocolate. It would not be fair to
say anymore about the chocolate as few choice
adjectives could describe such an experience.

Our final stop is actually not
to any specific region or country at all, but a
marketplace devoted completely to desserts and
champagne!

Taking the spot usually occupied by a World
Showcase popcorn and soda stand, the offerings
are replaced with rich and decadent desserts and
champagne.

The Dessert and Champagne
marketplace offered soft serve ice cream with
Grand Marnier (an orange flavored liquor), three
separate desserts for $1.50, and all three
desserts for only $3.95! That is probably the
best deal found at Food and Wine. I love the
smell of savings in the morning, so I could not
pass up this deal! I decided to try the one I
thought I would like the least first. The Lemon
Chiffon was first. It was basically a small
square of chiffon cake with lemon custard and a
dollop of meringue on top. In a sense, it was a
fancy version of lemon meringue pie. I actually
enjoyed this quite a bit, taking in the strong
lemon flavors.

Next was the Tres
Leches Verrine. I knew I'd be really risking my
lactose intolerance with this one since it was
basically a cake soaked in milk and cream.
Usually in tres leches cakes, the three milks
used are whole milk, evaporated milk, and heavy
cream. In this dessert, all I could taste was
evaporated milk. It was nice and sweet, and the
toasted coconut flakes added a nice touch to the
dessert, though it was overall my least favorite
of the trio.

Finally, I completed my dessert
trio adventure with the White Chocolate
Macadamia Mousse with Dark Chocolate Pearls.
Sounding the most decadent of them all, this
dessert actually did live up to its name! White
Chocolate is my favorite kind of chocolate even
though it's not actually chocolate and most
people think I'm nuts for liking it. Though with
this dessert, I actually started to waver a bit
on the dark chocolate side. I may have exhausted
my tongue with the previous sweets, but overall
I felt like this one was too sweet. White
chocolate is basically the cocoa butter (the fat
component of chocolate), sugar and milk. With
everything else in this dessert, I felt like
they should have upped the dark chocolate
content to provide more balance. The macadamia
nuts and chocolate pearls did provide a nice
satisfying crunchy component and though the
dessert was too sweet, I still enjoyed it!

Epcot's Dessert Trio

With only one week left of the
Food and Wine Festival, there is still much to
sample! Hopefully I will get to cover everything
I have wanted to try and perhaps inspired you to
make a trip down for the next Food and Wine
Festival. For now, I will attempt to sleep as I
try and ignore the rumblies in my tumbly after
writing about all these desserts.